Overindulgence is good (in moderation)

Some thoughts from Dick Puddlecote’s post on Christmas:

1. DRINKING ALCOHOL…
Everything in moderation is OK. The fact that something doesn’t kill us in small quantities doesn’t mean that we should overindulge in it.

2. OVEREATING…
Same point. Though it has been shown that calorie restricted mice do live longer than morbidly obese mice. Though the kinds of food eaten are probably a major factor too.

3. FATTY FOODS…
Fatty foods are good for you. The human body needs fat to work. Just as it needs loads of other vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates, etc as well to function properly.

4. CHOCOLATE…!!
Pure chocolate, not the british chocolate and definately not american chocolate.

5. ENJOY BEING LAZY…
Sleep is definately necessary. Not just for the body but for the brain too. Don’t sleep for a week and you go mad.

6. OR, WALK IT OFF…
And exercise is good too – in moderation. Doing too much exercise doesn’t make you any better than doing just enough.

7. ALL IN THE FAMILY
8. LAUGHTER’S STILL THE BEST MEDICINE
9. KEEP THE CARDS COMING
Humans are social animals. They thrive in their own group. And knowing that they are liked by their own tribe means that stress levels aren’t raised as there is no need to fight or argue.

10. POWER OF PRAYER
Prayer or any other form of meditation (not yoga stuff) such as just doing nothing is just as good. It seems the human brain needs some faith to allow it cope with the real world without going mad.

So enjoying yourself in moderation over a long period means that you can over indulge for certain times when you can really let your hair down and enjoy being alive. Anyone who tries to ban and stop you is only jealous because they can’t enjoy it – usually due to some chemical imbalance from not over indulging.

America was created by extremists

From the BBC’s own correspondent –

After De Tocqueville, just about every European sent to the United States has treated the posting as an invitation to help diagnose the country’s faults and suggest ways in which they might be fixed.

Americans find this a little puzzling.

After all, they reason, theirs is a country founded and created by migrants who had left the old world behind them.

And it is generally the most energetic and resourceful people who flee old lives to build new worlds, leaving their less enterprising fellow-countrymen behind them.

Actually, America wasn’t founded by those most energetic and resourceful. It was founded by those who hated their fellow-countrymen and escaped to a place where they could do what they want. So it was founded by extremists. So it is right and proper that the old world looks on America and tries to persuade them of the error of their ways and that the European model has done quite well and they should use it too.

Though seeing how the European model is attempting to be next USSR the Tea Party might have a point.

Disable the tube

Inspired by this post by Underdog  and Jody’s calls to have the whole tube network modified for him and others like him.

He doesn’t take into account any cost benefit analysis. Only that everything must be modified for the disabled no matter what the cost to the public purse even in this strained times. Not public not private, they don’t expect to pay a dicky bird towards the modifications they demand.

It would be cheaper if people like Jody had free taxis everywhere they go than modify the tube network.

All this modification for disabled is fine, but sometimes it doesn’t make much difference anyway.

For instance building regulations means that you have to have a downstairs loo in a new house with a wide door to allow a wheelchair access amongst many other rules. How many households have wheelchair visitors? Very very few. How many households have wheelchair occupants? Even less. How many new houses are being built compared to the overall housing stock? A tiny proportion. So the likeyhood of a disabled person being able make use of the downstairs look is extremely small.

It would be cheaper to remove all the legislation about disabled access from building control and fund the odd conversion where necessary totally from public funds. All disabled people will have very individual needs so it would be better to make their house totally suited to their particular needs than make all new houses just about ok for the disabled and not suitable for the minority disabled who have exceptional needs and then have even more changes made to the house for them.

Quote of the Day

This in relation to a CEO (Civil Enforcement Officer) putting a parking fine on a car and then finding a dead person in the back.

He said: ‘I heard the call come in on the radio. He is really shaken up by it. The thing is, we are not allowed to wake people up in their cars if they are asleep in case we give them a heart attack.‘

Someone’s been thinking too much without actually using their inteligence (they probably have none) or has probably seen a film where this happens. In real life someone sleeping in their car will never get a heart attack from a minor surprise to someone knocking on the car window. It’s not surprise that tends to cause heart attacks, it’s stress and over exertion.